This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Each year the Red Cross of Alaska
asks people throughout the state to nominate someone they feel has goneabove and beyond the call of duty to help
someone in need. This year, the team of four Kodiak Island Search and Rescue
members who successfully rescued four construction workers stranded in a
blizzard on Sharatin
Mountain in December,
have been nominated for a "Real Heroes" award sponsored by the Red Cross. The
crew is nominated for a wilderness rescue award for their efforts.

The 10th Annual Real HeroesBreakfast takes place April 14th
at the Hotel Captain Cook in Anchorage.

Pat Schmalix, one of
the four KISAR rescuers, will represent the crew at the April event in Anchorage. He said he was
surprised by the nomination and the response to the group's work that night.

--(Heroes
113 sec."A few weeks afterwards ... bigger
than I thought it was.")

Schmalix
said he has distinct memories of the December rescue and says the four stranded
workers are heroes in their own right for having survived the ordeal.

--(Heroes
234 sec."I'll never forget ... an easy way
to say it.")

Schmalix said there were other
heroes involved in the rescue operation, which included members of the Alaska
State Troopers and the Coast Guard, aside from the four KISAR rescuers who
actually went up the mountain. Tom Walters of Maritime Helicopters, who flew
the crew to the mountain, was one of them.